Surfside Beach, a village of 560 people an hour south of Houston, is known for a few things: It has one of the state’s handful of drive-on beaches, attracting droves of families each summer to soak up the sun and the surf; its shoreline is the southern boundary of the Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge, where birders can catch a glimpse of the brilliant roseate spoonbill; and the beach is a favorite nesting spot of the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, the smallest and rarest sea turtle on the planet. And now, much to the distress of the people who live here, Surfside Beach could soon be known as home to the last onshore leg of the newest crude oil pipeline in Texas.
Melinda Wilhelm, who operates an insurance agency in town, is especially concerned about the pipeline, a joint venture between Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners and Canadian petroleum giant Enbridge. The project proposes running it along the Highway 288 corridor, edging Angleton, Oyster Creek, and Surfside Beach, to an offshore oil platform 30 miles into the Gulf. Wilhelm’s 6-acre tract of beachfront property, which she describes as a “little slice of heaven,” sits squarely in the pipeline’s path.
Since learning of the project at a public meeting in February—Wilhelm wasn’t even notified by the companies, she says—she and community leaders have been working with environmental activists to slow it down. City councilors have voted to oppose it. While it’s easy to doubt this tiny town’s chances at winning a fight against two monied oil juggernauts, Wilhelm says the stakes are too high for residents to sit idly by. “Our concern is an oil spill could just devastate us,” she says. “Our livelihood is the tourist industry. … Nobody wants [the pipeline] here.”
